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America, & Me
America, & Me
An American
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Community Worker
Clown
After over thirty eventful years of community service work in the United States--each experience filtered through the lens of my boyhood and early adult years in India--I would like to share with you information about my literary works set in India and the United States.
I grew up in Bombay, where I attended St. Michael's High School, Wilson College, and the University of Bombay (M.A., Economics). In the United States, I studied at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism (MSJ). I live and work in California.
While working in the United States, I have focused on community development, homeless training and employment, and accessible housing for persons with disabilities. I worked for five years as a Volunteer In Service To America in Michigan (Grand Rapids) and California (Madera, San Francisco, and Berkeley), and sixteen years at the Berkeley Center for Independent Living.
In the late 1980s, when I reached a breaking point working in a variety of dysfunctional settings, I learned many life enhancing lessons developing the Personal Clown buried inside me. When that, too, was not enough to lighten the load, attending 90 Twelve Step Program meetings in 90 days restored the balance
in my life.
I helped establish Jobs for Homeless Consortium in Berkeley in 1988 and was its executive director from 1995 to October 2004. As part of the peer counseling approach that I championed, I focused on hiring people who had personal experience with homelessness, disability, or recovery from addiction. Our wonderful team of street-smart experts helped Open a World of Possibilities for over 15,000 homeless persons, using
client-centered, learner-centered methods. The client came first for us, not the agency.
I was the editor and publisher of New River Free Press of Grand Rapids, Michigan (1974-1977); editor and designer of The Architecture of Independence series (Ramps are beautiful, 1982; Going where you wheel, 1986; and Making your home accessible, 1988); and executive editor of Fast-Track Training & Employment: Opening a World of Possibilities for Your Clients (Jobs for Homeless Consortium, 2000).
In the past year, I have been working on putting up this website, learning the mechanics from scratch, and incorporating content that includes a range of interests. I have also been busy writing and editing.
If you have known me mainly in my community service work, you would be interested to know that I started out as a writer of stories, in prose and poetry, and that part has never really been far from me.
Take me out of the community service box and what you will find is the person who wants, if I may paraphrase Milton's words, to know, to utter, to argue according to my conscience above all other liberties.
If you have known me mainly in my community service work, you would be interested to know that I started out as a writer of stories, in prose and poetry, and that part has never really been far from me.
Take me out of the community service box and what you will find is the person who wants, if I may paraphrase Milton's words, to know, to utter, to argue according to my conscience above all other liberties.
I was pleasantly surprised in 2005 when Denver's on-line magazine Syntax published my humorous short story Sing an Indian Name. This success encouraged me to keep trying and in the first week of 2006 I had another short story accepted, this time in Philadelphia, for publication in February.
In 2005, I finished editing my three books--two novels, Anything Out of Place Is Dirt and That Damn Romantic Fool, and a collection of poems, Split in Two--that were published in my twenties (except for a few poems of later vintage), and I am happy to report that the revised second editions are out and have
arrived from India.
You will find these books revealing aspects of the journey from the battle lines of the intellect to the heart's warm embrace. Each copy is beautifully handcrafted, a work of art in itself.
In a world of automated printing and copying, the art of creating books by hand is not fully appreciated. Each time I handle one of these books, I feel honored to have my work memorialized by the traditional craftspeople in Calcutta, India, who contributed their skills to these creations.
Even if my artistic skills as a poet and novelist do not strike a responsive chord in you, I am sure the look and feel of the books will.
My mailing address is:
You will find these books revealing aspects of the journey from the battle lines of the intellect to the heart's warm embrace. Each copy is beautifully handcrafted, a work of art in itself.
In a world of automated printing and copying, the art of creating books by hand is not fully appreciated. Each time I handle one of these books, I feel honored to have my work memorialized by the traditional craftspeople in Calcutta, India, who contributed their skills to these creations.
Even if my artistic skills as a poet and novelist do not strike a responsive chord in you, I am sure the look and feel of the books will.
My mailing address is:
Michael Chacko Daniels
P. O. Box 641724
San Francisco, CA 94109
United States
Free For Public Libraries
These three booksare free,
if ordered for the uncensored, permanent India, Asia, or World Literature collections of public or university libraries. First preference will be given to libraries that currently have the first edition of these books. Ask your local library to request the books today from:
MichaelChacko
Daniels
P. O. Box 641724
San Francisco
CA 94109
USA
The two novels featured in IWS, Dirt and Fool, explore the close, many-layered relationships between young men in India at a time of religious, linguistic, and racial divisions; urban isolation; unfulfilled romantic and sexual yearnings within a conservative society; and intense argumentation over contending paths to national development: social democratic versus revolutionary.
If you haven't done so yet, please check the Navigation bar above for the following pages: Split in Two, Anything Out of Place Is Dirt, That Damn Romantic Fool,or Community Worker. The works of fiction, Dirt and Fool, will be serialized on this website in the future.
If you are interested in unsigned copies, Split in Two, Anything Out of Place Is Dirt, and That Damn Romantic Fool are also available from Writers Workshop, 162/92 Lake Gardens, Kolkata 700 045, India.
From 2005, besides writing short stories and articles, and working on this website, I have been giving finishing touches to my three unpublished novels, which I had put aside in the late 1980s in order to shepherd the Jobs for Homeless Consortium.
Finally, I have come to realize that it is the Personal Clown buried inside me who has seen me through the best of times and the worst of times.
______________________
Limited handcrafted editions.
Each copy is a unique, hand-crafted work, individually signed by
Michael
Chacko
Daniels.
Writers Workshop books are published by Professor Lal from 162/92 Lake Gardens, Calcutta 700045, India. Printed by Abhijit Nath in a Lake Gardens Press.
Gold-embossed, hand-stitched, hand-pasted, and hand-bound by Tulamiah Mohiuddin with handloom sari cloth woven and designed in India, to provide visual beauty and what the publisher describes as “the intimate texture of book-feel.” The publisher, who glories in that “each WW publication is a hand-crafted artifact,” refuses to hide WW bindings “concealed behind ephemeral glossy jackets.”
______ * ______
Roy Daniels
The past offers pointers. 
Your comments are always welcome.
Michael Chacko Daniels
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